Sunny Saturday!!!

It's been rainy and cloudy a LOT this week, so utterly delightful to have a sunshiney Saturday morning! The arena is still soggy, so we'll probably not get to ride today, but at least we might have the chance to get things dried out a little bit around here.

Procrastination abounds...

As I'm so very lax in updating my Blog, a lot has happened since the last post. Thanks to much encouragement from husband, family, and friends (Barry and Thomas especially!) I'm immersed in a new adventure. It's great to be pushed in the direction of doing what you love by folks that appreciate you! As I type, I'm sitting at Aaron England's International Learning Center (ILC) here in the middle of Texas, getting ready for the day of learning more about horse training. England's Versatile Horsemanship (EVH) is a method of training that follows the Natural Horsemanship techniques. These techniques use communication with the horse in the language it understands, using mainly body language and positioning to ask the animal what we want them to do. There is also the goal of becoming the leader for the horse, a leader that the animal wants to follow, not has to follow by force.

I've been here two and a half weeks, and as my main goal at this point is to become a more confident and knowledgeable colt starter, we've been going over the basics to starting a horse. My 'student' (actually, I'm more HIS student) is a quarter horse named Johnny, who has been started before, so I can learn the techniques without having to teach him the steps at the same time. Johnny has quite the personality, and is a rather dominant individual, so the first day I worked with him, he tried very much to find out if he could dominate me...not by being aggressive or anything that extreme, but by saying 'do I HAVE to?' to everything I asked, and then acting as though he wasn't sure what I was asking. Once we clarified the fact that yes, he HAD to, and Yes, I was doing it right, he decided it was less work to do what I asked.

I'll do more updates on training with Johnny, but wanted to get this posted, as folks are asking how things are going out here! I'm very much enjoying all the lessons and the people that I get to work with/around, and I have the opportunity to live in a mobile home with a very knowledgeable horse person. There's almost always someone around to talk horses with, and pretty much neverending work to do if I want to be doing something. We have 10 horses in the barn right now that I get to take care of, since the weather has been rainy and cool, and they're doing ok with being in, but they're getting a bit of 'barn fever' and wanting to run around and play. They get to be out for a little bit in the mornings when I clean stalls, but they're used to having most of the day out moving around. The church that Aaron and Riva (his wife) go to is a cowboy church, and I've been able to go two sundays so far. The folks are very welcoming, and it's wonderful to have a church so close that makes me feel so much at home! I was worried that I'd have a challenge finding anything for a while that fit what I like in a church, it's pretty hard to replace Harvest, and this one doesn't even do that, because it's so very different, but I like it! It's not every church that has a stock tank for a baptismal, and holds roping practice every saturday night in their arena! :)

I miss Joe dreadfully, but he gets to come visit in a few weeks, so that makes things a LITTLE easier. And I got to bring a little bit of home along with me, because Aaron said I could bring a horse, so Twisty was able to tag along. She will hopefully be one of the horses that I start while I'm here, I'm trying to get her over the last little bit of rain rot she had from home before we work too much with her.

Well, there are 10 horses that have finished their breakfasts and are waiting in dirty stalls for the manure mover (aka ME) to come clean and give them morning turnout, so I shall have to update more some other time!

God's little blessings

On tuesday evening, I went to check on the Dogwood pregnant mares (friend's of mine's horses) at approx 10:30 at night. Their Bootsie girl had been appearing to be CLOSE to giving birth for days, and so we've taken turns checking up on her a few times a night. She was laying down, grunting and breathing hard, so I sat down a little ways away to watch for a few minutes, and Kay Driftwood (the other pregnant mare) was walking around a little. Less than 5 minutes later, I heard the sound of liquid flowing, and when I glanced that way, it looked like Kay was just going to the bathroom, but then she started walking around, while still splashing, and I realised that her water had just broke! SOOOO exciting, I'd had the opportunity to see 4 foals born before, but she was only the second to see from the very start of it. Down she plopped, and grunt-push and the amnionic sac appeared, then you could see a little foot, and the other foot following, and then hurrah! a nose. She got half the foal's head out, and then came to a bit of a pause, and then when she pushed, the right leg went BACK, and the other still started forward. She pushed again, and the same thing happened, so I hunkered down behind her, and gave the lagging leg a bit of a tug, and could feel his shoulder straighten out and slide forward. One more good push from Kay, and half the baby was out almost in my lap, snorting and snuffing and trying to clear its nose. I rubbed its face dry, pretty little head, and a biiiiiiiig white blaze, on a nice golden chestnut. Momma relaxed for a minute, stuck her head around, and nickered at the little one, then stood up, sliding him out the rest of the way. I backed out of her space to let her meet her new baby, and she licked him dry. So neat to get to see the birth - such a blessing .

The baby ended up being a little colt, who has the nickname Sonny Boy - or 'just a minute' since he seemed to enjoy taking his time in doing EVERYTHING - getting up, eating, etc. Of course, maybe it just felt that way, since we were up til 3am with him!

This morning, I woke up all of a sudden at 6am, and thought to myself - "I'm wide awake, I wonder if God woke me up to check on Bootsie" so I crawled out of bed, and hopped in my car to go check on her, because I knew if I didn't, if she DID foal at 6, I'd never forgive myself for not checking on her! The sunrise was BEAUTIFUL, and I spent a nice quiet hour with God watching the mares, and little Sonny. There's something so peaceful about watching horses eat. We're still waiting on a Bootsie Baby, but she has to be getting closer! One day at a time I guess...

Introductions!

If you want to find out about the human part of this blog, that's what the 'about me' section is for. :) Here you get to meet the critters that live at our place and fuel my passion for horses.

Rio - a 7 year old Pinto gelding, he gets to be first on the list because he's the first horse I've had the pleasure to own. He can be a spaz about some things, but is a sweetheart with beginner riders. He is deathly afraid of plastic bags - he SWEARS that they're going to eat him!

Nebular - He's 17, a registered Arabian who I fell in love with while going to California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, and he was given to me as the horse to use for my senior project. There is always a trick horse at Cal Poly Pomona, and the former trick horse Jaime was needing to retire. Nebular was a fun challenge, as he was the first horse I ever tried to trick train, so there were many times that we took a LOT longer to learn something than we should have taken! After graduating school, I left, and he stayed of course...but after a few years, I decided that I HAD to do something to get him! The folks at Cal Poly said that if I trained a replacement, he could be mine. 2 years more, and a lot of adventures with Libertie (the arabian mare that became the replacement) and Voila! I am now the owner of my buddy Nebular. So he's having to learn about a Missouri winter, which is somewhat cooler than a Southern California one...

Libertie Cat's Ian a.k.a. Scamp - Scamp was an unexpected blessing that Libertie decided to create (with the help of a friend's stud) and one of the reasons that I had Libertie for 2 years. He was born in May 2008, and I had the opportunity to imprint train him - although we didn't get to see him born, because she snuck him out while we were watching a movie. He's a loveable little pest, who's accident prone. Here he is, 1 day old, with Libertie.

Zira - 4 year old Mare, Registered Breeding Stock Paint. Zira is one of those 'saw her, have to have her' situations, she's supposedly had 30 days training, but had a few years off after that, and she basically needs to be restarted. She's another trick training prospect for me, and hopefully going to be my sidesaddle riding horse. She has a tough time trusting people some days, but she seems to have a good bit of intelligence. She has a 'blow up and buck' streak, but looks good under saddle, doesn't she?

Belle - My husband's BIG grade buckskin mare, 6 years old. She's an easy going girl, adores Rio, and is the lead mare of the bunch. Her trot is big as the world, and her canter...well, she tends to think that cantering takes ENTIRELY too much energy. She's an easy keeper - and if on pasture she dapples like crazy - Husband says she eats so much she 'cracks'.

Annie - the newest addition to our herd, a 3 year old Mustang mare, originally from the wild hill country of Oklahoma. Her story is the main story we'll see...for this Blog she's our 'leading lady' so to speak. And she is a lady, most definately! She and Nebular have a special friendship (they're nearly inseperable), because they traveled all the way from California to Missouri together - with a long layover due to truck difficulties...but that's another story.

That's the equine part of the place - we also have 3 dogs (Badger, Cali, Spur), hopefully chickens soon (we just got the chicken house finished), and the barn cat "Skeeter" that comes better when called than most of the dogs do! Skeeter also has a love of horses, I was working with Annie in the round pen, and she came down and insisted on being a part of what was going on, so you'll probably see her in pictures every now and then.